


i'll take coffee and talk about nothing

by Horsantula



Category: Blaseball (Video Game)
Genre: A little angst, Coffee Cup (Blaseball), F/F, Flashback, Grand Siesta, Heavy FC (Blaseball Team), Implied/Referenced Character Death, Seasons 7-10, Shelling
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-23
Updated: 2021-01-23
Packaged: 2021-03-15 00:01:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,375
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28929204
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Horsantula/pseuds/Horsantula
Summary: On her way home from the Coffee Cup, Jaylen Hotdogfingers runs into her two-time teammate and fellow former "protagonist" of Blaseball, Jessica Telephone.
Relationships: Jaylen Hotdogfingers/Jessica Telephone
Comments: 18
Kudos: 14





	i'll take coffee and talk about nothing

Jaylen can tell that the travel bus has almost reached its destination when the clouds of fog surrounding the vehicle grow denser. She sits up in her seat and hugs her knees to her chest as the familiar dampness sets in again. Heavy Foam is, just as its name suggests, a strange little city on the coast, swathed in dense fog that necessitates the near-constant blare of foghorns to warn approaching ships. Multiple times every hour, reverberating over the bay, loud enough to drown out the roar of the crowd at a blaseball game or jolt Jaylen awake in the middle of the night. 

She can’t wait to leave. 

The drive back from Inter Xpresso is long, which gives Jaylen plenty of time to think about the 4-0 lead she blew to lose the final game. Then she feels uneasy at the fact that now that the Shelled One is gone, that’s her biggest concern. Her arm’s finally her own again; the only beans during the game are coffee. So she’s not sure why she feels so unsatisfied.

The bus is silent except for the hum of the engine and some tinny music playing over the radio. Jaylen rests her chin on her knees, looks down at her uniform. This time it’s seafoam green. She’s been through so many, sometimes she can’t keep track of them all anymore. 

The Heavy FC stadium rises out of the fog, indistinct at first, and then resolves into a large monolith of weathered stone, slick from the humid air. Though it’s technically her home stadium for this brief time, she never got to pitch a real game there. Though, for all she can remember, she might have in the past. Like all things Coffee Cup, the stadium seems both familiar and unfamiliar, like a dream made real. 

The bus pulls up to the curb and Jaylen hastens to grab her bag. She can feel the eyes on the back of her head as she steps onto the sidewalk, and turns to see her teammates follow her out.

“Nice work, everyone,” one of the Heavy FC captains, Polkadot Patterson, addresses the team. “Have a good siesta.” 

Jaylen mumbles something in return that’s drowned out by the foghorn blaring and then goes into the stadium one last time to clean out her locker. Checks out of the hotel she’s been staying in since the beginning of the tournament. Piles all her equipment and suitcases into the trunk of her sedan. It’s an old car, the one she’s had even before Season 1, when people knew her only as Mayor Hotdogfingers. The bumper is plastered with stickers - faded ones covered up by those more recent: logos of the Pies, Moist Talkers, Thieves, and Lovers.  _ KILL ALL GODS.  _ A murder of crows. A long list of names she’ll never forget. 

She turns the key in the ignition and the car rumbles to life. There’s only one road out of Heavy Foam, and the fog recedes as she follows it. Soon she’s trundling along, eyes on the horizon and the long path stretching ahead, few other cars in sight. She’s not really sure where she’s going, on account of her unfamiliarity with San Francisco and the fact that Heavy Foam seems entirely unbound to typical rules of space. Something tells her to just keep driving, so she does, putting in a cassette of Garages songs and fixing her eyes on the road. 

Several listen-throughs of the cassette later, the sun’s growing lower over the horizon, streaking the sky with orange light. Jaylen’s eyes burn. A break and something to eat would be nice. As she scans the sides of the road for any indication of a rest stop, a faint neon glow catches her eye. A diner spills welcoming yellow light from its windows. Jaylen pulls into the parking lot and kills the ignition. She steps into the cool dry air and takes a deep breath. One of the tires is over the white line of the parking spot but she doesn’t care. Gazes up at the sky, watching the backlit clouds drift past. She shoves her keys into her pocket and heads inside.

The diner smells of coffee, which Jaylen has had more than enough of the past season. She wrinkles her nose at it and slides into a booth. The vinyl is a garish teal that reminds her of her short stint on the Pies. A server comes by and hands her a menu. It’s four pages long, crammed with choices, and Jaylen looks up from it just as the door opens with a chime and Jessica Telephone walks in. 

She’s mid-yawn, covering her mouth with her hand. Her long brown hair is tied back in a ponytail under a dark blue Macchiato City cap. Her eyes swing over to Jaylen, who freezes, caught staring. But to her surprise, Jessica just raises a hand in greeting. She pauses for a second to survey the diner, then turns back towards Jaylen and to her surprise, walks over.

“Mind if I join you?” She gestures at the seat across from Jaylen.

“Uh, yeah. Go ahead,” Jaylen says. Jessica sits down. Her T-shirt has the name of some Dallas restaurant written on it:  _ Mina Cuisina.  _ Jaylen hands her the menu and she pores over it. 

The diner speakers are playing some faint lo-fi, the Garages’ newest album if Jaylen’s not mistaken, and she drifts off on its wake...

* * *

She remembers the first time she saw Jessica Telephone. She hadn’t been a notable player during Season 1, but now she was the darling of the league. On Season 7, day 25, in the travel bus on the way to Philadelphia one of her teammates had given Jaylen the run-down on the Pies.

“Ordinarily, Jessica Telephone would be one of our biggest obstacles, but she’s shelled right now, just like McDaniel-”

“Wait, Telephone’s good now? And what do you mean  _ shelled _ ?”

Jaylen soon found out it was just like it sounded. For the entire game, a life-size peanut stood eerily still in the Pies dugout. But, with her arm going haywire, she had bigger things to worry about.

The first time Jaylen actually talked to Jessica was a long while later. By then, she didn’t sleep; closing her eyes showed her the torches of the Hall, brimming with blue flame, rather than darkness. But no matter how exhausted she was every game, she kept throwing those wicked pitches with more speed than she thought she could muster, hitting her target dead-on every time. 

Season 8, Day 20, and she felt mounting dread as the Pies’ tour bus rolled up to the Garages’ stadium. Huddled in the dugout, she couldn’t resist looking over her shoulder to see them file out. Sure enough, Jessica was there, unshelled for several weeks now. Jaylen had never seen her in person, just in promotional materials from past seasons. She looked a little more gaunt, maybe, a little haunted around the eyes, but her Dial Tone was just as formidable when Jaylen was staring it down from the mound.

Even so, the Garages won, 4-3, and Jaylen hustled back into the stadium as soon as it was done. Since her debt had been refinanced, she’d started going to team dinners again, now that she could manage to look her teammates in the eye. But she wanted a few moments to herself, first.

Her usual spot, a dark alcove under one of the staircases usually crowded with stacks of folding chairs, was occupied. She discovered this when she pushed some of the chairs out of the way with a loud grating sound of metal on concrete, and saw Jessica sitting there, head buried in her knees. She jumped at the noise and looked up to see Jaylen, who hadn’t moved fast enough to escape detection.

“Um, hi,” Jaylen said. 

Jessica sniffed, wiped her face with the back of her hand. “What are you doing here?”

“I was going to come and sit here too. Prime spot for post-game brooding.”

Jessica laughed, slightly frenzied. She gestured to the floor beside her. “Well, don’t let me stop you.”

The concrete was hard and cold as always, but with Jessica sitting hunched next to her, it felt different. She’d taken down her ponytail so her hair, half-brown and half-teal, formed a curtain around her face. She said, muffled, “Ever since I got out of that damn peanut, the light hurts my eyes.”

“I’m sorry,” Jaylen said. She paused. The silence hung in the air. “...For everything.”

Another muffled chuckle. Jessica raised her head up from her knees so Jaylen could see her eyes for a split second, then lowered it down again. “Good.”

It was evident she wanted to be alone, so Jaylen forfeited the spot to her and stood up. Dinner awaited.

As she walked away, she remembered the swell of satisfaction she’d felt last season every time she beaned a hitter, and shivered. She saw Jessica’s eyes again, in her mind’s eye, and they turned into Sebastian’s, wide with shock and fear as the force of Jaylen’s bean ball caught his shoulder and spun him around. 

The next time Jaylen saw Jessica, she was shelled, again. They were even teammates for a short while, but seeing the giant peanut everywhere - the dugout, the locker room, even the few team dinners she went to - gave her a heavy feeling in her stomach. It was always still, never a single quiver or sound from it. Either Jessica had given up, or her acts of defiance were muffled by the cellulose.

Then, a season later — 

Choux Stadium looked so different cast in red light, and Jaylen spat blood onto the ground and looked up to home plate, where Jessica stood with Dial Tone ready to swing, her eyes red and piercing, her hair down, white and brittle. Jaylen forced herself to look her right in the eyes. There was no trace of the other Jessica there, the one she’d seen huddled under the stairs.

“What’re you waiting for?” Jessica jeered.

Jaylen couldn’t muster an apt response. Every part of her body ached. She gathered every ounce of strength she had left. Threw the ball as hard as she could. And knew, even as the red light overwhelmed her senses and she collapsed to her knees in the dirt, it was a home run anyway.

...Another season passed and they were teammates again, off and on, under a blue glow this time, and as the ring of the feedback resounded in her head Jaylen saw Sebastian charge the umpire in a burst of flame. In the outfield, the red faded for just a second from Jessica’s eyes as she screamed. Some unseen force clamped her mouth shut and made her pick up her glove from the ground. She tried to sprint towards him, but it yanked her back and flung her back to her spot in the outfield to crumple on the ground. Jaylen turned. Even from a distance she could see Jessica’s chest heaving rapidly and the tears streaming down her face.

* * *

The dull chatter of the diner’s patrons crescendos over the lo-fi and shakes Jaylen from her reverie. Just as Jessica looks up from the menu, the server comes around again and she hands it to them.

“Can I get a roast beef sandwich with fries, a whoopie pie, and a coffee.”

“I’ll have a grilled cheese with tomato soup and a coffee,” Jaylen says. 

Jessica props an elbow on the table and rests her chin on her hand. “You tired of coffee, too?”

Jaylen nods. “So much. But I need to stay awake.”

“Honestly, I never wanna drink a macchiato again. It was literally the only beverage they had in the players’ lounge. We had to bring our own water.”

“I’m never having my coffee with foam again,” Jaylen agrees. “And I won’t miss Heavy Foam - the whole place had this horrible chilling fog, all the time.”

“Well, in Macchiato City it was always, always night,” Jessica says. “But” - she holds up a finger - “we never slept. We never got tired. How ironic is that.” She lets out a short laugh. “Honest, Jaylen, this whole Coffee Cup thing was so weird. Did you think so?”

“Yeah. I didn’t think I’d remember Heavy Foam at all, but once I actually got there, it all seemed so familiar. Just as I was getting used to San Francisco, too.”

“Same. The weirdest thing - I got into Macchiato City, right, and as soon as my car passed into the city limits, I instantly remembered where my hotel was. It was like I’d been there before. I even remembered there was a skate shop down the block.”

“So strange,” Jaylen said. She wouldn’t have minded not needing to sleep. The constant fog in Heavy Foam seeped through her hotel window at night and seemed to exacerbate her nightmares. She’d dream of the Trench and wake up feeling damp.

“On that note, how are the Lovers?” Jessica asks. 

“They’re really nice. Even when I gave up twenty-four runs against the Steaks my first game pitching, they didn’t tease me too much.” 

Jessica chuckles. “Think I heard about that.”

“I was so embarrassed, but everyone was nice about it. Even the Steaks didn’t gloat that much.”

“That tracks.”

“Oh, and the Lovers also have the most comfortable beanbags in the Immaterial Plane. I can lie down on one of those and fall asleep in, like, twenty seconds.”

“Really?” Jessica raises an eyebrow. “Let me know what brand and maybe I’ll get the Mints to put some in the players’ lounge. I could use a pre-game nap.”

“How’re you adjusting to the Mints?” 

“Well, it’s a hell of a lot better than being stuck in a peanut. The air’s so fresh it actually feels weird going to away games. And my teammates are great too.”

Jaylen remembers playing at the Mints’ stadium, where the air was so minty it tingled on the back of her throat when she breathed in. She spots the server coming back with their orders. The food smells appetizing, but the smell of the coffee turns her stomach. She dunks a sugar cube and a splash of cream into it and then takes a cautious sip. 

It transports her back to the mound, watching as coffee beans rained from the sky and suffused the stadium with their aroma. Cinnamon. Lavender. Marinara. Garlic? Ew. Garlic doesn’t belong in coffee.

She sets the mug down and gives it a disapproving look. Across the table, Jessica is having a similar problem. She shakes her head, pinches her nose, and downs the whole mug in three gulps.

“That was a...strategy,” Jaylen says. 

Jessica shrugs. “I’ve got a long drive coming up.”

Jaylen sighs and follows Jessica’s example. The coffee isn’t boiling hot, but she can feel it scald her throat a little. She coughs. Maybe that’s what being Magmatic feels like.

“Yuck.”

“I know, right,” Jessica says. “I got beaned so many times I don’t even know what coffee’s supposed to taste like anymore.”

“How was it?” 

“Some of them were nice. The lavender wasn’t bad. There was a butter one, kind of greasy. The dirt one was the worst.”

“Dirt.”

“Don’t recommend it.” Jessica takes a bite of her steak sandwich. “Much better,” she says with her mouth full.

Jaylen starts eating as well, and there’s a comfortable silence at the table as both of them focus their attention on the food. She’d forgotten how hungry she was, and she’s three-quarters of the way through her soup and sandwich before she starts to slow down. She watches as Jessica builds a tower of fries on her plate, drizzles it with ketchup, stabs it with a fork and shoves the entire thing into her mouth. She asks, “Any plans for siesta?”

Jessica shrugs, mid-swallow. “Not really. Honestly I haven’t really had this much free time for like, ever. I might road trip around, see some old friends.”

“That sounds nice. I’m planning to go back up to Seattle for a little bit, but I don’t really know what to do beyond that.”

“Strange how blaseball leaves this huge void behind,” Jessica says. “For all it’s already taken from us.”

Her eyes turn sad for just a moment as she looks down at her plate. She stabs her next fry into the ketchup with a vehemence that reminds Jaylen of facing her down back in Season 8. Jaylen says, “I get what you mean.”

“Yeah.”

“The whole first week of siesta I think I spent entirely in my bed. I dug out my trumpet to practice, but the neighbors complained about the noise. I missed pitching, but practice just wasn’t the same without any games to look forward to.”

“Coffee Cup just wasn’t the same,” Jessica agrees.

Jaylen thinks back to Season 1, the last time she strolled up to the mound without fear. When winning and losing was the only thing she was concerned about. “I guess it’ll never be the same.”

“Maybe that’s a good thing. With the Shelled One gone, who knows what’s coming next?”

“Peace and Prosperity, maybe. I’ll believe it when I see it.”

“Me too. And if not, well...”

“God-killing round two?”

“Read my mind.” Jessica picks up a knife and gestures at the whoopie pie she ordered. “Wanna split this?”

“Yeah, sure.” 

Jessica cleaves it neatly in half and passes the plate to Jaylen, who picks up her piece and takes a bite.

“This is a pie?”

“Yeah. Whoopie pie.”

“Seems more like a cake to me.”

Jessica laughs and rolls her eyes. “It’s got pie in the name, it’s good enough for me. I’d always get these at postgame dinners back when I was on the Pies.”

“That reminds me. Back when I was on the Thieves, the only thing that kept me going was those post-game pastries from Choux Stadium. Used to go up to the roof and share with the crows.”

Jessica wipes a few crumbs off her mouth. “By the way. Mind if I ask you a question?”

“Go for it.”

“Okay, so…” She shifts in her seat. “If you happened by chance to consume a hotdog, would it be…”

“Oh,  _ come on! _ ” Jaylen protests, but she’s laughing. “I’ve had them before. Nothing happened. It was completely fine.”

Jessica nods. “Good to know. That’s one burning question crossed off, then.”

At that moment, the server comes back around with the bill and places it on the table. Jaylen reaches out and grabs it, but Jessica’s hand lands on top of hers.

“Let me,” Jaylen protests.

“I’ve got it,” Jessica says.

Jaylen doesn’t move her hand. Jessica’s is warm. She knows her own hand is cold because it always is. 

“Didn’t you help kill the peanut?” Jessica asks. 

“I feel like that’s a generous summary of my actions.”

“Yeah, well.”

“You can buy me something from the concessions stand next time we play each other and we’ll be even.”

“Fine.” Jessica removes her hand. “I’ll mail you several pounds of breath mints as well, so keep an eye out. Do you like peppermint or spearmint better?”

“Um...either is fine.” 

Jaylen pays. The detritus of their meal is removed from the table and Jaylen wishes she could stay there for just a moment longer, bask in the glow of the neon and the furniture that’s the same color as Jessica’s hair used to be. But if she puts off the drive any longer the caffeine will have worn off. So she stands up and puts on her jacket and follows Jessica out the door. 

In the parking lot, Jessica turns and holds out her arms. Jaylen hugs her. It’s brief, but warm, and gives Jaylen a rush that’s equivalent to any coffee.

“It was great seeing you,” Jessica says.

“Yeah, you too. Have a good siesta, okay?”

“I will. Keep in touch.”

They go their separate ways, and Jaylen watches as Jessica’s car shudders to life and pulls out of the lot. From outside, the diner’s glow isn’t too bright as to obscure the stars above, and Jaylen leans on the steering wheel and watches them for a moment before continuing her drive home. 

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! I loved writing these two, and I hope you enjoyed reading it. 
> 
> Title is from "Old Friend" by Mitski.


End file.
